a. l. m. wiggins, a.b.
the same problem confronted me that confronts the great majority of college boys when they decide to go to college—the financial one. three financial plans were open. i could borrow the money necessary for a college course and pay it back after completing the course, or i could work two or three years and save the necessary amount before going. the only other course open was to earn my expenses as i went. any one of these plans would have incurred a hardship, so i selected a part of all three of them. i am convinced that this was the very best course.
the day i decided to go to college, twelve months before i entered, i was financially about even with the world. by good luck and close saving during this following year my savings amounted to five hundred dollars, which represented my total capital when i entered the university of north carolina. as a freshman, i had very few opportunities to make money, and by the end of the year my capital was reduced to one hundred and fifty dollars. a position the following summer on a weekly newspaper netted expenses and experience, and i therefore 186 started back the next year with only the hundred and fifty.
expenses were provided for this year by means of work with the university press and the management of a boarding house. newspaper reporting furnished a few dollars and some good experience, and a campaign for subscriptions to a popular magazine was also productive. about this time i found it necessary to use my original hundred and fifty for an object not connected with college, and so it was paid out. but the end of the session found me practically even financially and with all debts paid.
at the beginning of my junior year, i had less than one dollar capital. the management of the press was given me at this time at a salary of sixty-five dollars a month, and i continued to manage a boarding house. a number of side schemes, including the management of telegraphic athletic reports, selling advertising novelties, newspaper reporting, an interest in a fruit store, etc., brought in irregular but substantial returns. during this year i managed to meet all expenses and save about three hundred dollars. this amount added to a lot of nerve with which i borrowed twelve hundred more, gave me capital for an investment, which later netted a profit of two hundred and fifty dollars.
during the following summer, i spent the three hundred in traveling and entered my senior year without a cent but the two hundred and fifty, which was tied up in such a way that i couldn’t get it for 187 some time. i leased the print shop this year and did other work such as selling shoes, advertisements, visiting cards, etc. the larger part of my time this year being taken up with some of the more strenuous “college activities,” my income was cut down and it was necessary for me to borrow less than a hundred dollars from the university. at graduation, i could have paid off all debts, and had left two hundred dollars or more.
